SANDY POINT, WA - There is room at the top in the high-stakes world of top-level quarter horse competition. According to renowned trainer Ted Turner, Jr., of Aubrey, Texas, “The two greatest producing sires over the last ten or fifteen years, Mr Conclusion and Kid Clu, have passed on, leaving a null and void in the breeding industry.”
Ted Swanson’s Design by Concention (“D.C.”) became a strong prospect for filling that void when he won the aged stallion competition in halter on the final day of last November’s AQHA World Championship Show in Oklahoma City. D.C. finished first with all five judges, receiving a perfect 360 points, 59 more than the reserve champion.
“That’s quite an accomplishment for both D.C. and Mr. Swanson,” said Turner, who added that a unanimous decision from all five show judges is “about as rare as a four-game sweep in the World Series. It all starts over now, though. He’s definitely a candidate for that niche, but it’s now up to his get to prove his ability as a sire.”
D.C.’s pedigree reads like a who’s who. Four generations back is AQHA World Champion Conclusive, sire of twice AQHA World Champion Obvious Conclusion, sire of AQHA World Champion Concention, sire of World Champion D.C.
Concention, now owned by former Pittsburgh Steeler Terry Bradshaw, has sired one other world champion and two reserve world champions out of his 59 foals who have earned AQHA points.
My Approval, D.C.’s dam, is by world champion Approval out of reserve world champion Honeysuckle Tea, by two-time world champion Quincy Feature (for whom the mare’s bloodline is named), out of First Revenge.
SERENDIPITY
Swanson, 44, found D.C. in August of 1997 as a weanling at Bennett Woodland Farms in northwest Washington State. He’d just seen some old friends from his years as a teenage rider and budding trainer at the Whidbey Island, Washington, M bar C Ranch, and after more than a decade away from horses it had him looking at getting back into riding.
“Horses were the farthest thing from my mind, but I caught the disease again,” Swanson laughed, “when Mark McDonald called to say he’d been riding at a ranch not far from the old M bar C, a place owned by our instructor from when we were 4-H kids together, Randy Thompson.” Swanson met McDonald at the ranch for a couple of days of riding and reminiscing, and “thought about getting maybe a mare to ride around, have a few babies. Not a stallion, though. No way.”
An internet search revealed that Link N Lace, a filly he’d bred himself many years before, was less than an hour’s drive east at Bennett Woodland Farms. He went out not sure what to expect and found himself driving into “one of the premier quarter horse breeding facilities in the west. Great place, great people,” Swanson said.
He found the mare but she wasn’t for sale. “The trainer there at the time then showed me four eight-month-old weanlings, and the youngest one, a colt, really caught my eye.” Swanson drove home, trying to talk himself out of getting a stallion, but his business partner John Butler reminded him that “trusting your gut instincts usually works out well,” so Swanson bought the colt the next day, realizing that his re-kindled interest in horses had just taken an abrupt turn.
”D.C. looked to me to be capable of competing at the very top, where it’s much more a business,” said Swanson, “and if you play, you should be playing to win. But you know what? I feel like I have more in common with a 4-H kid who keeps a backyard horse, because I love the animal no matter what the outcome. It’s not just the competition or the money that can be made from a horse. For some people, they’re just a commodity.”
Swanson credits Thompson with showing him how to assess a horse’s conformation, to look for a certain shoulder and hip length and slope, the right kind of trapezoidal silhouette from the side and so on, a technique that supposedly works even with very young animals. “I had a feeling about D.C.,” he said, “so it was a matter of going with my gut after not being able to find a reason not to do it. Luckily, I listened to my business partner, John Butler, who reminded me that I’ve never gone wrong just following my instincts.”
“For Quarter Horses, Carnegie Hall is Somewhere Between Dallas and Oklahoma City” - Ted Turner, Jr.
“Ted Turner is one of the best in preparing and showing a horse at this level,” said Swanson, “having trained 175 world champions in 30 years.” That connection was made after Swanson had gone through a number of other trainers, leaving stories enough to fill a movie and probably a sequel, with incidents and allegations, hirings and firings, injuries and even fisticuffs. Welcome to the world of high-stakes quarter horse breeding.
“There was a learning curve all right,” Swanson said, “but I trained horses for many years, and all along I knew what I wanted with a good horse like D.C. I just needed someone I could trust to do it right. Remember, kids, it’s your horse and your money, so do it your way. It costs no more to keep a good horse than a bad one, so if you’re not happy, switch.”
Legendary quarter horse trainer Jerry Wells first saw D.C. when he was being exercised by Canadian trainer Laurie Takoff prior to competing as a yearling at the 1998 AQHA World Championships, always held at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds.
The Obvious Conclusion stallions can be slow to mature, so Wells advised Takoff and Swanson to keep him out of the competition even though they’d already paid the fee and had gone to the expense and trouble of bringing him down
“After all that trouble it didn’t feel good to do that,” said Swanson, “but a comment from Wells is like having Ted Williams advise you on hitting a baseball. As it turned out Wells was right.”
D.C. won yearling competitions in Canada, including the national championship in halter. He was Arizona Sun Country Circuit Champion as a two-year-old, having lost his youthful gangliness to become a well-muscled deep mahogany chestnut, 15.3-hands tall.
D.C now resides at The Lannings (Edgewood/Lanning, Inc.) in Pilot Point, Texas where he stands at stud as the 2002 AQHA World Champion Aged Halter Stallion.
The ranch is owned by Bill and Ann Lanning, who managed, cared for, and promoted the legendary AQHA stallion, Mr Conclusion, half brother to D.C.’s grandsire, Obvious Conclusion. It was the Lannings who welcomed Obvious Conclusion into the world the night he was born in 1981, eventually to become two time world champion.
Swanson had spoken to the Lannings about needing a trainer for D.C. to compete for a World Title, and they suggested Ted Turner. “We felt that Ted was the best man for the job and definitely would be our first choice,” said Ann Lanning.
Her husband Bill talked to Ted and he agreed to show the stallion. In late summer, following a busy breeding season, the horse was moved to the near-by Turner Ranch to begin his preparation for competition. Turner said that for the world show D.C. worked out “six days a week, and on a diet as rigid as that of any champion athlete, with sweats on from withers to poll. He’s pretty, an eye appealing horse with gorgeous color and lots of balance,” Turner said.
The connection that the Lannings provided to Turner became the key to D.C.’s ultimate unanimous victory. He retires with 81 halter points and is a Superior Halter Horse, multiple circuit winner, Canadian national Champion, and Champion of Champions at the RMQHA PreDenver and the Denver Stock Show, where he earned all the points necessary for last year’s AQHA World Championship Show in Oklahoma City.
So far, 50% of his foal crop has achieved register of merit in halter. One of his colts is high point halter weanling stallion for New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut. A filly has won the American Royal.
“Visitors are always welcome at the ranch,” said Ann Lanning, with characteristically enthusiastic Texas hospitality. “D.C. seems to be enjoying his retirement, however this month the 2003 breeding season will begin and it looks like he’ll be busy working on the next phase of his career - that of being a sire!”
Edgewood/Lanning, Inc. in Pilot Point, Texas, about 45 minutes north of Dallas, will continue to be D.C.’s home for the next several years at least. “I’m happy to have found people who appreciate D.C. and can provide a place where he’s safe, comfortable and can be productive,” said Swanson, who hopes eventually to bring him back to his northwest home where he found him as a furry little colt only five and a half years ago.
Copyright © 2008 The NW Horse Source, LLC
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